Most novelists don't require a police escort on a book tour stop in Miami, but Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is not your average writer.

Her $475,000 advance for "The Dirty Girls Social Club" in 2001 rocked the publishing world, and the writer was hailed as the "Latina Terry McMillan," referring to the author of "Waiting to Exhale," which proved that a commercial novel with African American characters could be enormously successful.

Since then, the 37-year-old writer has become increasingly outspoken on issues like immigration and the Iraq war, sold almost half a million books, founded a literary festival, created a film production company and completed two more novels. Her new book, "Make Him Look Good," is a funny, dishy story set in Miami about a cross-over Latin music star, Ricky Biscayne, and the people who revolve around him, including a lovelorn fan who becomes his publicist.

Under a fashionable froth of designer clothes and romance, Valdes-Rodriguez's novels explore identity with characters of different ethnicities, races, and sexual orientations.

In "Make Him Look Good," for example, there's a devastating caricature of a ruthlessly ambitious singer-actress-fashion designer, Jill Sanchez, who is carrying on an affair with Biscayne while publicly rhapsodizing about her engagement to a tall, likable actor. Jill's taste in fashion runs to "fur, leather, Versace, and other assorted dead things, and diamonds," and without computerized pitch control, her voice "sounds like a dying sea bird ... something only dogs can hear, slowed down to human range."

"The Jill Sanchez character is obviously fictional, but there are quite a few anecdotes in there that come from real experiences that either I or other people had with J.Lo," says Valdes-Rodriguez, sitting in a Mission District cafe on a recent visit to San Francisco.

Jennifer Lopez had been signed on as a producer and star of the film version of "The Dirty Girls Social Club" when Columbia Pictures optioned the rights, but the deal fell through.

Valdes-Rodriguez says the manipulative, sleazy Biscayne is a "totally made-up character," and jokes that he's like a gorgeous Miami singer, "if he was straight, or like Marc Anthony if he was handsome." The author drew on the experiences of a friend who was a publicist for a "big celebrity," and says, "She went from being a fawning fanatic to someone who would call almost in tears." Before the friend quit her job, she told Valdes-Rodriguez, "It's about 99 percent true that whatever you read about someone is the opposite of what they are."

Valdes-Rodriguez speaks from experience.

"I had been an entertainment reporter, so I got access to celebrities through the gatekeepers, the publicists," she says. "You have a certain image of them, then you get to meet them, and they're very, very different from the image. That's the genesis of this book."

But it's not the celebrity dish that's behind her need for extra security on her publicity tours.

It's the death threats and groups of older Cuban men who do not look like typical chick-lit fans attending her appearances, harassment she's endured since childhood because of the political views of her father, Nelson Valdes, a Cuban emigre and sociology professor at the University of New Mexico.

In recent CNN appearances, she's criticized politicians' and pundits' use of the word "immigrant" as synonymous with Latino or illegal, and said she believes that fervor surrounding illegal immigration is a ploy by some to divert attention from more critical issues, including the Iraq war. The country, she says, is "slipping very quickly toward a fascist state ... and I feel that as a creative person and an artist I have an obligation to talk about it."

She observed the interaction of race, ethnicity and social class growing up in New Mexico, where she now lives with her husband, screenwriter Patrick Rodriguez, and 5-year-old son, Alexander.

"We like to talk about ethnicity, but the real story in America is socioeconomic class," she says. "I'm pale, but a lot of my family in Cuba is what we would think of as black here. Latino is more than just brown; we're African too. In this country, there have been a lot of false stories that say that Latinos now outnumber blacks. It's like saying fruit now outnumbers oranges."

Marcela Landres, an editorial consultant in New York whose Web site, www.marcelalandres.com, and Latinidad newsletter support Latino writers, said Valdes-Rodriguez's success builds on McMillan's.

"Until 1992, the typical publishing professional (who is not usually African American) believed that African Americans did not buy books because the sales figures of books by and for African Americans were, at best, modest." The huge sales for "Waiting to Exhale" exploded that myth, she said, and publishers were seeking a novel that would have the same effect with the Latino market. Valdes-Rodriguez's lively novel about six diverse Latina friends was just what they wanted: a mainstream book that would draw in Latino readers.

Valdes-Rodriguez has mixed feelings about the way she's been packaged. "The first major piece that came out about me was in the Chicago Tribune with the headline 'The Latina Terry McMillan,' and almost every piece since then has called me a Latina something or other," she says. "My mother is Irish American, and if this were a matrilineal society my last name could be McGraff." Initially bothered by the categorizing, she says that she's been branching out, and her new novel features several non-Latino characters. "I feel fortunate to be making a living writing. I'm grateful for the fans I have, and they do cut across the spectrum."

She also doesn't mind being labeled a chick lit writer.

"I like being called a beach read. I don't want to preach to the choir. I can sit here and say Latinos come in all shades for the rest of my life and no one would care," says Valdes-Rodriguez, who has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. "I'm trying to create a human being in a fun, fashion-y way and get the messages across."

An accomplished saxophonist and graduate of the Berklee College of Music, she says music has helped define her writing style. In jazz improvisation, "they teach piano players and guitar players to phrase according to their exhale because piano players can play indefinitely, whereas wind players have to take a breath to play," she says. "The human ear evolved to take in short packets of aural information. I do that with writing."

Later, as a features writer for the Boston Globe and an entertainment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, she honed her succinct voice. She cites Hemingway, Dean Koontz and particularly Alice Walker as influences. "The first time I started thinking about identity stuff was when I read a short story she wrote," she said, referring to Walker's "Everyday Use."

While she's been at the center of controversies, she says it's her sense of justice that compels her to speak out.

"For some reason, the things that make sense to me don't always make sense to other people," she says. "I don't view myself as necessarily fighting; I think of myself as defending the voiceless."

Valdes-Rodriguez's composure breaks only once, when she lets out a shriek and reveals that the manuscript for her next novel, "Girl Crush," is due in two days. She's also working on a screenplay for her film company, and her young adult novel, "Haters," will be published in October. "I feel it's the best thing I've ever written," she says.

The Chica Lit Club Fiesta, which she founded, will be held in Miami later this month with many prominent Latina writers in attendance.

"I designed it as more than just a literary festival. It's an opportunity for fans of the genre to live this life that they read about," she says. "We've got a Girls' Night Out, where we're getting in a limo, going to Bongo's, having dinner in a private room and dancing all night." There's also a Girls' Night In with a pajama party, videos and popcorn.

The subject of labeling comes up again, and she mentions that she wrote literary novels that were rejected because, she was told, one was "too dark" and another "didn't have any Latinos in it." She says, "Once you're in a box, you can't get out unless you change your name."

She's trademarked the term "Chica Lit" and says with a wry smile, "If they're going to call us that, I'm going to own it and I'm going to make sure it's used properly. Some battles you can't win, but you can change the rules."